An engineered T7 RNA polymerase for efficient co-transcriptional capping with reduced dsRNA byproducts in mRNA synthesis.

Messenger RNA (mRNA) therapies have recently gained tremendous traction with the approval of mRNA vaccines for the prevention of SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, manufacturing challenges have complicated large scale mRNA production, which is necessary for the clinical viability of these therapies. Not only can the incorporation of the required 5' 7-methylguanosine cap analog be inefficient and costly, in vitro transcription (IVT) using wild-type T7 RNA polymerase generates undesirable double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) byproducts that elicit adverse host immune responses and are difficult to remove at large scale. To overcome these challenges, we have engineered a novel RNA polymerase, T7-68, that co-transcriptionally incorporates both di- and tri-nucleotide cap analogs with high efficiency, even at reduced cap analog concentrations. We also demonstrate that IVT products generated with T7-68 have reduced dsRNA content.

Oral enzyme therapy for maple syrup urine disease (MSUD) suppresses plasma leucine levels in intermediate MSUD mice and healthy nonhuman primates.

Maple syrup urine disease (MSUD) is an inborn error of branched-chain amino acid metabolism affecting several thousand individuals worldwide. MSUD patients have elevated levels of plasma leucine and its metabolic product α-ketoisocaproate (KIC), which can lead to severe neurotoxicity, coma, and death. Patients must maintain a strict diet of protein restriction and medical formula, and periods of noncompliance or illness can lead to acute metabolic decompensation or cumulative neurological impairment. Given the lack of therapeutic options for MSUD patients, we sought to develop an oral enzyme therapy that can degrade leucine within the gastrointestinal tract prior to its systemic absorption and thus enable patients to maintain acceptable plasma leucine levels while broadening their access to natural protein. We identified a highly active leucine decarboxylase enzyme from Planctomycetaceae bacterium and used directed evolution to engineer the enzyme for stability to gastric and intestinal conditions. Following high-throughput screening of over 12 000 enzyme variants over 9 iterative rounds of evolution, we identified a lead variant, LDCv10, which retains activity following simulated gastric or intestinal conditions in vitro. In intermediate MSUD mice or healthy nonhuman primates given a whey protein meal, oral treatment with LDCv10 suppressed the spike in plasma leucine and KIC and reduced the leucine area under the curve in a dose-dependent manner. Reduction in plasma leucine correlated with decreased brain leucine levels following oral LDCv10 treatment. Collectively, these data support further development of LDCv10 as a potential new therapy for MSUD patients.

Optimizing human α-galactosidase for treatment of Fabry disease.

Fabry disease is caused by a deficiency of α-galactosidase A (GLA) leading to the lysosomal accumulation of globotriaosylceramide (Gb3) and other glycosphingolipids. Fabry patients experience significant damage to the heart, kidney, and blood vessels that can be fatal. Here we apply directed evolution to generate more stable GLA variants as potential next generation treatments for Fabry disease. GLAv05 and GLAv09 were identified after screening more than 12,000 GLA variants through 8 rounds of directed evolution. Both GLAv05 and GLAv09 exhibit increased stability at both lysosomal and blood pH, stability to serum, and elevated enzyme activity in treated Fabry fibroblasts (19-fold) and GLA-/- podocytes (10-fold). GLAv05 and GLAv09 show improved pharmacokinetics in mouse and non-human primates. In a Fabry mouse model, the optimized variants showed prolonged half-lives in serum and relevant tissues, and a decrease of accumulated Gb3 in heart and kidney. To explore the possibility of diminishing the immunogenic potential of rhGLA, amino acid residues in sequences predicted to bind MHC II were targeted in late rounds of GLAv09 directed evolution. An MHC II-associated peptide proteomics assay confirmed a reduction in displayed peptides for GLAv09. Collectively, our findings highlight the promise of using directed evolution to generate enzyme variants for more effective treatment of lysosomal storage diseases.

A key developmental regulator controls the synthesis of the antibiotic erythromycin in Saccharopolyspora erythraea.

Saccharopolyspora erythraea makes erythromycin, an antibiotic commonly used in human medicine. Unusually, the erythromycin biosynthetic (ery) cluster lacks a pathway-specific regulatory gene. We isolated a transcriptional regulator of the ery biosynthetic genes from S. erythraea and found that this protein appears to directly link morphological changes caused by impending starvation to the synthesis of a molecule that kills other bacteria, i.e., erythromycin. DNA binding assays, liquid and affinity chromatography, MALDI-MS analysis, and de novo sequencing identified this protein (M(r) = 18 kDa) as the S. erythraea ortholog of BldD, a key regulator of development in Streptomyces coelicolor. Recombinant S. erythraea BldD bound to all five regions containing promoters in the ery cluster as well as to its own promoter, the latter with an order-of-magnitude stronger than to the ery promoters. Deletion of bldD in S. erythraea decreased the erythromycin titer in a liquid culture 7-fold and blocked differentiation on a solid medium. Moreover, an industrial strain of S. erythraea with a higher titer of erythromycin expressed more BldD than a wild-type strain during erythromycin synthesis. Together, these results suggest that BldD concurrently regulates the synthesis of erythromycin and morphological differentiation. The ery genes are the first direct targets of a BldD ortholog to be identified that are positively regulated.